Healy magic moment

From the Sydney Morning Herald's The Tonk blog:

Fifteen years and 702 Test wickets have passed since Muttiah Muralitharan made his Test debut against Australia in Colombo, but Ian Healy remembers the occasion well. When Muralitharan was introduced into the attack for the first time, the then Australian wicketkeeper was positioned at the non-striker's end as Border took strike. According to Healy, Border played and missed throughout the over, then sought a centre wicket conference to discuss the rookie "leg spinner" and his unorthodox action. "Umm, I think he's an offie, mate," Healy retorted, much to Border's bemusement.

The day when Beefy caught in a stew

Further to the last post on Ian Botham's knighthood comes this ironic story from the 1992 World Cup.

The Australian press picked this up from sportasylum, a sports history site, obviously more than happy to relive the story 15 years on. Beefy reveals that he is still incensed over the pre-World Cup final dinner and the infamous Queen impersonator.

The all-rounder and Graham Gooch both walled out of the dinner when the comic joked that the royal family was to be sponsored by Fosters and was to be privatised.

Watch the ITN news item here.

Genuine Mexican?

A pearler from yesterday's Test Match Special, the last produced by outgoing Peter Baxter. The legendary Tony Cozier had his colleagues in hysterics after being conned by a spoof letter from a Mexican calling himself Juan Carr.

Cozier was reading out emails during the lunch break in Durham, and when the team is usually at its best when they make it up as they go along. He said: "One listener says he is trying to introduce cricket to Mexico but is finding it hard as it's very mountainous and there are no flat areas at all. That's from a Mr Juan Carr."

There can't be too many better places to be than on live radio in the TMS box when genuine laughter takes place. Viv, Aggers and Blowers lost it before Aggers eventually told Cozier, who didn't get the joke: "I think you've been done there Tony."

Silly bowling tricks

Nice anecdote from Charles Randall's cricket site:

John Barclay mentioned to a taxi driver in India during the England Schools tour of 1970 that the umpires never gave anything out. “Ah, that’s easy,” said the driver. “What you must shout loudly, instead of ‘howzat’, is ‘where’s Allah?’ and then the umpire will instantly point his finger to the sky and say ‘up there’.” Didn’t work, but Barclay tried it again for Sussex at Ilford in the 1981 season. “Not out,” said umpire Shakoor Rana. “Not that silly trick again,” he whispered later.

Seeing the lighter side

The aftermath of major news stories always brings those black-humoured circulated emails. Patrick has one over at Line and Length on Bob Woolmer and, contrary to a couple of the comments, isn't in bad taste. It's no different to the jokes (or puns) on Diana and Rainbow personality Rod Hull, who fell off his roof fixing his aerial.

Put them in the public domain and there will always be the few who complain... or raise points. I was sent a link of a post I wrote citing my grammar. Humbug! made light of how I made false atttribution over the circulated email sent to Times journalist Simon Barnes.

No worries. It's only a blog.

The Hadlee post

In my last job, I spent a fair bit of time interviewing Kiwi legend Richard Hadlee.

His name came to mind this week with the massive MCG Test upon us. The notorious Bay 13 at the "G" used to put the wind up Hadlee no end and the taunt "Hadlee's a wanker" was heard everytime New Zealand played there. Greg Chappell once told Hadlee that to be called a wanker was, in fact, a mark of respect! So it was with classic Aussie irony when Hadlee was asked to bulldoze Bay 13 in 1992 when the ground underwent renovation; after all he probably did save his best performances playing Australia.



Hadlee also has some memorable quips involving Aussies. He once received a letter from an inmate in Auckland jail asking for some memorabilia. He wrote that it was difficult to get to the grounds at weekends because they preferred to keep him in on both days. Hadlee then said the letter finished: "P.S. If it helps, the house I burgled was owned by an Australian."

Another Hadlee anecdote involved a lady who went up to the Kiwi a couple of times during an autograph session. "Haven't I seen you before?" said Hadlee. She said: " Yes, but when I get 10 of yours I can swap it for one Dean Jones."

Fancy that

There was a time on England's tours when the team and management wore fancy-dress for their Christmas dinner.

Most players took to it too: Mike Gatting as Henry VIII, Beefy as a convict, Daffy DeFreitas as Diana Ross and Joey Benjamin (right) kneeling on Sesame Street-style carpet. Alec Stewart told me he came with just a fishing rod once (Rod Stewart) which wasn't the best if we're honest.

The tradition seems to have waned over the years and, if it did make a comeback, I'm sure the current team could dress up as themselves if they were short on ideas.

It seems the fancy-dress idea was first coined by Mike Brearley during England's 1976/77 tour to India and the dinner was shared with the travelling press. There are some photos which have stayed in the memory over the years too. Boycott dressed as Prince Ranjitsinhji, Beefy as Gandhi and JK Lever as Maggie Thatcher. Read Frank Keating's fun yule piece here.

And if you want to know how Aussies celebrate Christmas, there is a Lonely Planet piece on beach cricket here. Beats the fog and rain.

Don't forget your toothbrush, Doctor

It's time to delve into the Nutley archive: for this Perth Test has drawn up two blogging memories from England's tour to India earlier this year.

As the Australian players trickled into their Perth hotel over the weekend, it brought back memories of an absolute pearler of a cricket anecdote that journalist Ted Corbett told me about earlier this year. It centres around Dean Jones and his epic double ton in Madras twenty years ago and, more importantly in the context, why you see Australians carry their washbags from the team bus when they check-in at hotels on the sub-continent. For more laughs, read Ted's March 6 entry.

The Fremantle Doctor, Perth's cooling sea breeze, should help the spinners get some afternoon drift for this third Test - it is at its best during the December and January months after all - while it should offer the bowlers some swing after lunch. If the 'Doctor' is as consistent as it has proven to be this week, then England's use of weather patterns would come into the equation for the second time this year. Check out the Wankhede high tide factor entry here.

Adelaide Diary: Poker, spin & sledges

By far the best Adelaide station to wake up to - in my case 4am at the moment - is Triple M. The Adelaide version had 12th Man creator Billy Birmingham on this morning talking about its success, and Nutley was quick enough to record the classic interview. There is a new 12th Man CD out which features a Kerry Packer sketch; Richie phones up heaven and interrupts a poker game with the late media magnate, the Apostles and Jesus. You'll hear me laughing in the background during this mmmarvellous bit of comedy, and you can download it here.
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There is something rhythmical watching Australia in the nets. The day before the fifth Test at the Oval last summer, it was England who had the confidence: Trescothick, Strauss, Bell and Flintoff batting as one in the nets, almost at ease with everything going on around them. Yesterday, Australia looked the part: Gilchrist pulling effortlessly, Ponting making the net bowlers look just that, and Warne, with one pad on, playing the six balls left, 10 to win game. He then treated the 100 spectators to a spin class with the aid of mentor Terry Jenner, who was helping his pupil with flight and drift in a particularly long session.
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After yesterday's news of a possible Adelaide streak, last night witnessed humiliation for one Aussie at least. A mad-keen supporter named Simon had a bet last year that England would not win the Ashes. At 5pm he had to walk across the Birkenhead Bridge in Port Adelaide in nothing but a pair of Union Jack underpants. Local businesses and people from the community saw him take the "Walk of Shame", although it is not known whether he has since tipped England to regain the urn.
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It may be day one in Adelaide (and for UK readers, waking up at last to a promising start) but England could have been reminded of what might have been in Brisbane, thanks to a You Tube clip sent in by Dan. Ian Botham blasting 22 in one over off Merv Hughes is classic Beef on ball stuff. There is one rarely heard sledge surrounding this over - coming from one of the Swerve's own team-mates. When Dean Jones tossed the ball back to Hughes after a huge flay from Beefy, he said: "Jeez, Merv, that one went so far it should have qualified for frequent flyer points."

Lamb to the slaughter

So, a few hours left before it all begins. I will be galavanting around London to find out where cricket fans are watching the excitement, and will be reporting back for this blog. Before I get some sleep, a reader has sent in this link on today's sketch by Alex, The Daily Telegraph cartoonist.
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Carrying on from today's earlier post, another England stalwart has got on the banter wagon ahead of the Brisbane Test, which starts... today, tonight, tomorrow morning, wherever you're reading this! Ah, you knew that.

Allan Lamb has suggested that with Shane Warne at the helm, Australia would have won last summer's Ashes. Lamby's mindgames continue with the hint that Ricky Ponting's troops are showing pre-match nerves by selecting a big squad for the first Test.

Pre-match - even pre-series nerves - didn't even play a part when Lamby was around. Speaking to David Gower this summer, he told of one way Lamby and himself used to prepare themselves for tough tours: tackling the St Moritz Cresta Run.

"There was a mutual friend who had driven bobsleds as an amateur and wanted us to try it. We thought it would be a test of nerve doing the Cresta run and of course there’s nothing like facing the West Indies and Australia in the mid-80s: good acclimatization and good for things going past the head quickly. It was good fun and we subsequently did it for the next four years: a Cresta run in the morning and a bit of skiing in the afternoon. Because the Cresta is such a sociable club, half the people who turn up in the morning are completely buggered, so it clears the hangover pretty quickly. We copped a bit of stick for doing so-called dangerous sports a week before we were due for a big tour. When you first down you can dig your ties in and slow down. You feel like you’re doing 150mph but you’re not. You are something like nine inches off the ground, leading with your head on the Skeleton, and you are mighty close to the ice. It’s an exhilarating feeling especially if you like a bit of a buzz."

Beefy: Double-0 Ashes

You know it's getting close when Ian Botham is in town. Golf courses, restaurants, wineries and fishing boats are all vying for His Beefiness' business over the coming months. And it just wouldn't be the same without a newspaper quote: "This is the oldest Australian side I've ever seen," Botham said in his latest Dad's Army jibe.

I will have the pleasure of interviewing Beefy (or at least trying to) this Winter for a series of weekly podcasts. I don't expect an easy time of it either - just follow the Ian Botham tag below for a series of adventures tracking down the former Ashes giant.

In a storyline not too dissimilar from Daniel Craig's double-0 efforts, I have attempted to track Beefy down when he has been: on a speedboat to Ravi Shastri's abode in Mumbai; in a helicopter on his way for a round of golf with Dean Jones in Delhi; filming a Weetabix advert in Australia when I thought he was still in Sri Lanka and losing mobile contact on a mountain pass in Pakistan. (A far cry from playing himself in Emmerdale in 1995, right). It even went as far as trying to order some fish in a Sri Lankan restaurant, only to be told that a table (Beefy's) had eaten the lot earlier that day.

So when I heard that Beefy would be doing an Ashes walk Down Under, I resigned myself to hiring a van for an Outback expedition. Luckily his walking exploits were consigned to raising thousands last month in the UK, but I'm still taking my speargun and wetsuit out if I'm having difficulty on the Gold Coast.

Cricketers in hotel mix-up

Strauss calls the tune, Onions brings tears to Kent, Re-Joyce for Middlesex. All good player headlines for today's sub-editor, but how newsrooms early last century must have wished for something special during Jack Crapp's short England career, born this weekend in 1912.

However it is this gem from Cricinfo which he will be more fondly remembered... "When Crapp reported to the front desk, he was asked "Bed sir?" Presuming he had been mistaken for Alec Bedser, he replied, "No, Crapp." The receptionist duly directed him to the first door on the right."

There are some classic cricket anecdotes out there. Add all the sledgings from over the years and it amounts to a sport which is untouched from others in terms of characters, humour and, er, quips like Crapps.

Cricket makes characters too. Graham Gooch was a shy lad when he first joined the Essex dressing room; now he can mix it with the best of them. Here's another hotel anecdote from Goochie:

"We came to the Taj Hotel during one tour and I was sharing with Derek Underwood. We had flown in quite early and a practise session had been fixed for that afternoon, so most players got in some sleep beforehand.

"In those days you had to ring down for any orders, and of course not everything worked perfectly, even though the Taj was the best hotel there. Anyway, we were eventually able to order tea for two for around ten o’clock, which then never arrived.

"We never thought anything of it and after a joke we both went to sleep. We were due to get up at about two when there also happened to be a knock at the door. I opened up and there were four waiters outside, each holding huge trays with beautiful cups on each one.

"They all marched in and said: "Here sir, tea for ten at two!"

I read in Goochie's autobiography the same kind of story involving a Caribbean taxi company and 10 cars turning up, but with all those cricket dinners to attend, I suppose it's how you tell 'em.

Anymore out there?

Sporting excuses

You've got to hand it to Charles Collymore, one of the agents interviewed as part of the BBC's Panorama investigation into bungs, tapping-up's and general football shenanigans.

His excuse that he made up everything he said to undercover 'agent' Knut auf dem Berge, a German UEFA-licensed coach, so he could sound out whether he was the real deal was comical.

It reminds me of a few other sporting exuses from recent times. At the 1998 Winter Olympics, Canada's Ross Regabliati was stripped of his gold medal after a drug test found traces of THC - the chemical in marijuana. Regabliati claimed the traces came from second-hand smoke he consumed while partying during a pre-Olympic bash. He promised to "change his lifestyle" and wear "a gas mask" to future celebrations.

The best though comes from Zambian tennis player Lighton Ndefwayl after losing to Musumba Bwayla. "My opponent is a stupid man and a hopeless player. He has a huge nose and is cross-eyed. Girls hate him. He beat me in a two-hour match because my jockstrap was too tight and because when he serves he farts and that made me lose the concentration for which I am famous throughout Zambia."